Parent’s Corner: my boy loves Pokemon, so do I \ stacker news ~alter

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Parent’s Corner: my boy loves Pokemon, so do I

638 sats \ 22 comments \ @cryotosensei 23 Nov alter_native

zaps forwarded to @Coinsreporter (21%)

I never used to be into Pokemon. Never watched the anime. I got caught up in the craze when Pokemon Go was first launched. Did download the app and played it for a while. But I soon deleted it when the hype died down.

Never would I have expected that Pokemon would blast its way to the forefront of my mind, thanks to my son. He fell in love with it. Hard.

So much so that we made plans to visit the Pokemon Centre at Jewel Changi Airport.

This is huge, bro. Outside of Japan, Singapore and New York City are the only cities to host Pokemon Centre.

Okay, I was quite entranced by the realistic-looking models.

Then, I realised that it was running a quiz. Participants who answered three questions correctly stood to get a Pokemon badge as a souvenir.

Honestly, I couldn’t care less about Pokemon. But I knew my son would relish the chance to have the badge, so I morphed into Hunter mode!

Held his hand and ran all over the store to find the answers:

I kept getting the questions wrong, no thanks to my apathy and ignorance about Pokemon. But boy, did I persevere.

Finally, success was within my grasp! He got his badge! You can see how I changed my answer until I got it right.

Why was I so hyped up about Pokemon? Well, my boy has never shown a keen interest in anything so far. I would love for him to enrol in some swimming or martial arts or phonics or any other enrichment classss so that ~~I could buy two hours of precious freedom~~ he could develop his mind and body. But he has pooh-poohed all my suggestions so far. So, I feel that as his dad, I ought to fan this ember of interest.

He just declared today, “I want to be a Pokemon trainer when I grow up.”

Geez, this is HUGE. I want to show him my support.

I finally have some fun being a dad. It’s about loving the things you normally won’t but embracing them anyway because your child does. And surprisingly, because of your bond with your child, you end up caring about whatever he or she is obsessed with. I guess this is what parental love feels like.

Some happy sats to @Coinsreporter who just joined the ranks

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45 sats \ 9 replies \ @Satosora 23 Nov

I dont know if you have these, but in Taiwan, there were arcade machines that you could put a special card into and play with. People would have binders full of them.

20 sats \ 4 replies \ @gnilma 21h

When I went to visit family in Taiwan last year, there was one of these machines in a nearby 7-Eleven. My brother in law would drive his kids and my kids there, almost every other day, and the kids would line up and wait for their turn to play at the machine. It's like an arcade machine where you insert coins to play, they give you a choice of 3 random pokemons to choose from in the beginning, which is the one you can battle with. Pokemons will spawn in the wild, you battle them with the pokemon you chose to try to capture them. You can also scan your own pokemons to help fight more powerful pokemons. In the end, the pokemon you picked in the beginning and all captured pokemons gets printed on a plastic card. There are rare spawns that were being sold at online markets for relatively high prices. The kids were hooked on the whole gaming plus collection mechanic.

Kids lining up for the machine.

The plastic cards that get printed at the end of the game.

21 sats \ 3 replies \ @Satosora 21h

Right, these cards. I know in the claw machines, they had special gold cards. If you could manage to grab them....big if.

20 sats \ 2 replies \ @gnilma 21h

My brother in law told me each machine spawns a rare / legendary pokemon each day and once that legendary pokemon gets captured, the machine won't spawn another one until the next day.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @Satosora 21h

Are the legendary ones the gold ones? I seem to remember other colors, too. Maybe a red one?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @gnilma 20h

I think depends on which series. Their official site lists all the series and each rarity seem to have different colors.

The machines are called Pokemon Ga-Ole and it seems they are available in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, and Taiwan. See their site https://world.pokemongaole.com/

@cryotosensei, you can probably bring your son to check it out since it's available in Singapore. But word of warning, these things could become a money sink if you do try to catch 'em all.

20 sats \ 3 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 23h

These special cards double up as trading cards as well?

We have trading cards here. Otherwise, we use tokens for arcade machines. Though I don’t know if our arcades have Pokemon-themed machines. I burn my money at indoor playgrounds as of now lol

24 sats \ 2 replies \ @Satosora 23h

Its like a plastic card that can store data. I never played it, so l am not really sure. I just saw kids in the class trading them. Oh, also the claw machines would have them as prizes.

20 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei OP 23h

Will let you know when I visit Taiwan haha

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Satosora 23h

You are going soon?

24 sats \ 1 reply \ @Shugard 23h

“I want to be a Pokemon trainer when I grow up.”

As long as he doesn't go off on adventures and leave your wife alone with your brother, I think he'll be fine!

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 23h

I keep my fingers crossed

24 sats \ 4 replies \ @Undisciplined 23 Nov

My daughter's been pressing her grandpa to make her a Pikkachu balloon since she saw your son's.

33 sats \ 3 replies \ @cryotosensei OP 23h

Wow is your dad stressed? Haha

24 sats \ 2 replies \ @Undisciplined 23h

A little, but he'll figure it out.

29 sats \ 1 reply \ @cryotosensei OP 23h

So inspiring!

My dad was never into smart phones, but for the sake of his grandson, he went to the trouble of figuring it all out so that he could converse with my son more often

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 22h

That's sweet. Doesn't your dad live pretty close?

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @BlokchainB 20h

I identify as charmander

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @grayruby 20h

Awesome. It's great you have this common interest to share together.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DesertDave 21h

I used to play a lot of Pokemon go with my kids when they were younger. It was super fun to talk around at parks catching pokemon.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @bief57 23h

My husband loves pokemon and I introduced it to my daughter and she instantly loved it too, now she is a pokemon trainer in a game called poke MMO from time to time she takes my cell phone from me to go on her adventures, go to battles, catch pokemon and tour cities.

I had no idea that these places existed, I hope life allows us to travel there and live that experience.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Coinsreporter fwd 23h

Thanks for the sats and mention. I must say you are doing a great job as father. A grand salute to you.

I'd like to do the job as perfectly as you're doing but dear, my big Indian joint family hardly allows me spend time with the baby.

We had the namkaran (Name giving) rites done yesterday and everyone except me has come up with a name. Haha.